


like the sweetener you are

by thymeandlemons



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, also starring muffins but i don't think they count, but i promise it's almost entirely fluff, tiny teeny teensy bit of angst that has to do with misunderstanding and cyrus' insecurities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 18:43:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16561226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thymeandlemons/pseuds/thymeandlemons
Summary: Cyrus bakes T.J. muffins, but T.J.’s reaction isn’t quite what he had hoped for.





	like the sweetener you are

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Sweetener by Ariana Grande because I listened to it the entire time I was writing this. Hope you like it!

You know what? Cyrus is proud of himself.

Considering his previous baking experience consisted of microwaving pop-tarts, he has _plenty_ to be proud of. Sure, the muffins didn’t rise as much as he’d like, and their tops are flat and slanted to one side, but they taste great, and the muffin he tried had zero eggshells.

Eggs: zero, Cyrus: one.

(As the dozen terribly cracked eggs in his trash and the giant yolk stain on his favorite white shirt would testify, the actual score is much less Cyrus-favored, but that’s just a technicality.)

He had spent most of his Sunday morning researching recipes, his Sunday afternoon baking, and his Sunday night sharing his baking triumph with Andi, Bex, and Bowie. Now, the muffins (though that’s an awfully informal name for them, _they’re his babies_ ) are all packaged in his step mom’s blue Tupperware container, traveling safely in the bag he’s been guarding to his chest all morning. All that’s left is to find T.J., give him the muffins, and try to stop himself from combusting on the spot at the sight of his green eyes.

Cyrus realizes his feet have taken him all the way to the playground on autopilot, and looks around. He spots T.J. sitting by himself on _their_ table, off in a secluded area of the park, probably playing Fortnite on his phone judging by his scrunched up brows and the way he’s biting his tongue. It’s T.J.’s concentration face, reserved for writing essays and playing video games, and it’s one of Cyrus’ favorite things in the whole world.

Smiling, he walks up to T.J., trying to silence the words of anxiety that are making their way through his head.

“T.J., hi!” he calls out.

T.J. looks up, smiles when he sees Cyrus, and immediately puts his phone down. Cyrus knows how important that game is to him, and he has heard T.J. snap at his mom and his sister for interrupting him and disrupting his concentration, so the fact that T.J. just abandons an ongoing game at the sight of Cyrus makes his heart swell up with warmth.

“Hey, Cyrus! I thought you were running late this morning, I wasn’t expecting to see you until lunch.”

“Well, I was running late, but I convinced my stepdad to give me a ride. I couldn’t afford to show up late today.” He squints his eyes, and leans closer to T.J. to stage whisper “You see, I’m carrying precious cargo.”

T.J.’s brows rise, his smile getting even bigger.

“No way! Did you finally find that Brachiosaurus model you’ve been looking for?”

“No, that’s not… Wait, how did you remember that?” Cyrus asks.

“You’ve been looking for it online for months. I… I may have done some digging myself.”

“Oh…”

Cyrus knows it’s pointless trying to fight the blush creeping up his cheeks, but when he looks back at T.J. and sees his reddened cheeks, he figures maybe he doesn’t have to.

“Actually, T.J.” he says before he gets distracted again by just how much this boy means to him, “this cargo isn’t for me. It’s for you.”

“For me?” T.J. asks.

The actual process of taking the muffins out of the bag is less smooth than he had hoped for, they get stuck in the zipper, and the lid smooshes the corner muffin’s top, making it even more lopsided than it was, but after some mild struggling, he gets them out.

Beaming, he holds them out to T.J., and presents them with a dramatic “ta da!”

“What are these for?” asks T.J., his smile mirroring Cyrus’.

“They’re blueberry macadamia! It took me some time, but a bet is a bet.”

Quite a few seconds pass, and the muffins are still in Cyrus’ hands. He looks up, trying to figure out why T.J. hasn’t taken them yet, but he isn’t met with the smile T.J. had on just moments ago.

If anything, he’s frowning, and Cyrus has no idea what went wrong. All of his anxiety and self doubt rises to the surface, telling him the muffins look inedible, or their color is off, or worse, that T.J. is weirded out because it’s _too gay_ to bake for another friend.

“I… I know they don’t look great, but it was my first time properly baking by myself, and I promise I tried one and it tasted great. Well, good. Well…” he stammers, his heartbeat’s going faster and faster by the second, and not in a good way. He feels like he humiliated himself trying to impress his crush (again), and he thought he was over this but apparently he’s not.

“You don’t have to eat them” Cyrus tries, “I’ll just take them to-“

“Cyrus…”

“Yes?” he says, but he can’t look at T.J.. Not yet. So he places the container on his lap and puts his hands above it, playing with his fingers to distract himself.

He hears T.J. call his name again, but he still can’t look up. He startles when T.J.’s hands come into vision and take the container to place it on the table. Cyrus follows T.J.’s hands with his eyes, and is unable to do anything other than watch as they come to rest over his own.

That makes him look up, and he’s so relieved to be met with T.J.’s smiling face again.

“I’m sorry, Cyrus, I love them” he says earnestly. “I didn’t mean to make you think I didn’t, I’m going to have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Looking down at their hands, at T.J.’s fingers resting over his own, Cyrus tries to calm his racing heartbeat.

“Then why did you…” he drifts off, unable to finish the sentence. Luckily, he doesn’t have to.

“I kind of… had plans… with the muffins.”

“You… had plans with the muffins?” Cyrus deadpans.

“Well, not necessarily with the muffins. With you and the muffins.”

“Me and the muffins?”

“Yeah…”

“Cyrus and the Muffins would be a great band name you know…”

T.J. laughs, and Cyrus decides yet again that his laughter is the best sound in the whole world.

“What exactly were your plans including me and the muffins?”

“Well, I…” says T.J., and he takes his hands back. Drawing in a deep breath, he says “here goes nothing. There’s a reason I picked blueberry macadamia muffins.”

“Is it because they’re really difficult to make? Because they were! You definitely gave me a challenge.”

“They shouldn’t be difficult to make, they should be impossible to make. There isn’t a single online recipe for them. There’s only one recipe that I know of, and it’s stowed safely in my mom’s kitchen cabinet. I thought if you couldn’t find the recipe, you’d give up and come ask me, and I’d tell you it was a family secret and you’d come over and we’d make them together. You know?”

Cyrus opens his mouth to say something, anything, but T.J. keeps going.

“And I know it’s cliche but I thought we could have a flour fight or do whatever it is they do in those movies and…I’m so scared of losing what we have but I like you so much Cyrus and I know I’d regret it forever if I didn’t make a move. So I wasn’t sad about the muffins, I was sad that I missed my shot because you are… so important to me I mean you made me muff-mmph”

The rest of his tirade will forever remain a mystery, because digging up courage he didn’t know he had, Cyrus gets up and kisses T.J. At first, it’s just an awkward meeting of lips, but then they pull back and look at each other, smiling so big their cheeks start to hurt.

They lean in again, slowly this time, with intent. And this time, boy, this time it’s perfect. It’s butterflies in his stomach and it’s fireworks and it’s joy bubbling up past the surface because this incredible boy Cyrus likes actually likes him back. He likes him back, and Cyrus is so happy he feels himself buzzing all the way down to his toes.

When they pull back, only ever so slightly, they lean their foreheads together as T.J. reaches down to take Cyrus’ hands.

“In case it wasn’t clear, I ‘like you so much’, too” Cyrus says, voice tender, looking into T.J.’s eyes without any hesitation or doubt.

——

A few weeks later, when they’re sitting next to each other at the Spoon, holding hands under the table and telling Andi and Buffy the story of how they got together, T.J. says he’s sure it was the magic of the blueberry macadamia muffins that pushed them together.

“I’m telling you they have powers! Great great grandma Kippen was looking out for all of her future grandchildren with hopeless crushes!” he says, making the whole table laugh.

Cyrus just smiles, warmth filling his chest, because he likes this ridiculous, brilliant, funny, stubborn, super sweet boy so much.

And maybe, just maybe, when he goes to bed that night, texting T.J. “goodnight” and a heart, he closes his eyes and thanks Great Great Grandma Kippen, and her magical blueberry macadamia muffins.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'm so excited for tomorrow's episode (and next week's promo) that I've felt hyper all day and this just popped out of me, lol. I really hope you liked it, and kudos and comments mean the world to me!  
> I suck at replying to comments because I manage to get anxious over the slightest things, but even if I don't reply I read them all and they absolutely make my day.  
> Please let me know if you have any feedback!  
> And again, you can also find me at thymeandlemons.tumblr.com :)


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